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Mary Lou Egan was born in 1948 in Denver, Colorado. One of 5 children, she grew up in the Washington Park neighborhood. During her childhood she spent a signifigant amount of time at her grandparent’s house in the Globeville neighborhood. Her grandfather, a Slovenian butcher, worked in the Globeville Cash Market at 45th Avenue and Lincoln Street. On Sundays the family attended Holy Rosary Church. Mary Lou has spent several years researching the history of Globeville. As of November 2013, she lives in Denver, Colorado.

Description

1 audio file (48:11 minutes), 1 photograph

Is Part Of

Globeville and Swansea and Elyria Oral History Project

Subject

Egan, Mary Lou, 1948-; Globeville (Denver, Colo. : Neighborhood);

Geographic Area

Denver (Colo.)

Format-Medium

Audio; Photograph

Source

In the interview Mary Lou Egan talks about Globeville prior to the construction of the Valley Highway, as well as her memories of her grandparents, their neighbors, and community entertainment. She also discusses the culture, history, and traditions of Globeville’s residents in relation to their ethnic backgrounds and their interactions with each other. She discusses in depth the pollution from different companies and the highway, the lack of City services in the neighborhood, the evolution of the smelting industry, chain migration of the workers, and what the neighborhood can become.

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Copyright restrictions applying to use or reproduction of this image available from the Western History and Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library, at photosales@denverlibrary.org.

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Full-Text

Oral History Interview with Mary Lou Egan
October 19, 2013
Interviewer: Cyns Nelson
Interview Transcribed by Cyns Nelson
[Interview takes place at the Valdez-Perry Branch Library in Denver, Colorado.]
00:00 CN: Today is October 19, 2013. My name is Cyns Nelson, and I’m conducting oral histories with residents from the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. This interview is part of the Denver Public Library’s “Creating Your Community” project, and the oral history will be archived with the Western History Department. Right now, I am talking with Mary Lou Egan, whose grandparents lived in Globeville. So she spent quite a bit of time here when she was a child, and now is working on a book that is the history of Globeville.
So start by stating your full name; and tell me when and where you were born, and share something about your upbringing.
ME: My name is Mary Lou Egan, I was born in 1948 in St. Joseph’s hospital in Denver. I come from a family of five children, and we lived—I grew up in the Washington Park area, because that’s where my dad, the Irish Tom Egan, was from. My grandparents lived in Globeville, and we spent a LOT of time down there before the highway was built. So we’d go down there on weekends; Saturday and Sunday went to church at Holy Rosary; it was just really great.
During the summer, we would spend the night at my grandparents’ house. It was SO much fun. Globeville was such another world. At that time it was totally intact. Before the highways split it up in the late ‘40s and in the ‘60s, Globeville was like a model-train layout. It was between the hill—Argo, on the hill—and the Platte River on the east side, and between the railroads on 38th Avenue, and up to—52nd is Adams County line.
If you built a model-train layout, this is what you would do: You would have little houses next to each others, and they would have out-buildings, and sheds, and chicken coops, and summer kitchens; a mother-in-law apartment, the barns. And neat-as-a-pin yards—gardens, trees, bushes, flowers. There were seven or eight churches in Globeville. There were little groceries—there were a lot of barber shops. Shoe-repair stores, notions shops. And you could walk everywhere. It was safe to walk from 4552 Sherman to Argo Park.
CN: And 4552 Sherman is where your grandparents—
ME: My grandparents lived. So, to Holy Rosary—everywhere, we walked everywhere. And my grandpa was still working. He was born in Slovenia, and he worked as a butcher in Yelenick’s store when we were growing up. That was at 45th and Lincoln. I think it was called the Globeville Cash Market [?]. So we’d go over and visit him and buy penny candy. He was famous for his sausage. He could make everybody’s sausage: The German sausage, the Swedish sausage, Slovenian kielbasa, blood sausage. So that was really neat.
My grandma was born in Pueblo but her mother was from Sweden. Never learned English. So my grandmother could speak Swedish—which she did on the party line, so no one knew what she was saying. So we didn’t know what she was saying. But she could read and write Swedish. And there were a fair number of Swedes in Globeville.
So that was—we really enjoyed going down to Globeville. It was always another world, like stepping into another world. And everybody had a story. Bus [?] and Molly Baker who lived next door, they were White Russians. The lady across the street, Mrs. Strasheim, was supposed to be related to Catherine the Great. And people talked about the old country—they were born in another century, in another country. They all had these great stories. And you’d hear people speaking Slovenian, or Croatian, or Russian, or this peculiar brand of German, in Globeville. It just was another world.
04:42
CN: How did people get together? What were the kinds of community activities?
ME: What was big in Globeville—probably to a certain extent in America, before television—was your church and your lodge, your family, your work. Churches were very important. This was a reflection of your national pride. It’s the Polish Roman Catholic Church; it’s Transfiguration Orthodox Church. The Slovenian Croatian Holy Rosary. Three German churches. So, the church was huge.
But organizations: PTA used to put out these little—like a program, when you had a meeting. And they had entertainment and they had speakers. People attended group activities. And they respected each others. They went to each others’ church bazaars; they had concerts and plays at the lodges. People attended things at the Slovenian Hall, where McDonalds is now. The Germans weren’t supposed to be drinking so much, to the German churches, but they went to the Slovenian Hall. So, people were—it was very big.
CN: What is a Slovenian Hall?
ME: Oh my—the Slovenian Hall. The Slovenian Hall was built—it was actually started—most of these fraternals started in saloons. Fraternals were mutual help organizations. There was always the Polish Hall; Saint Jacob’s Croatian Hall. The Russians used the old saw mill, the Church Hall, for their meetings. But in an age before Social Security, Workmans’ Compensation, insurance, disability—if you’re working in a smelter or a foundry and you were hurt, your family was destitute. So, immigrants formed these fraternals. They were like associations in the old country: You paid your dues, and you were a member. And then if something happened to you, they took care of your burial. You had a stone; your family was taken care of.
The other big purpose of fraternals was to preserve the ethnic heritage of the groups that originated them. So they—you could go to the Slovenian Hall and get a Slovenian home-cooked meal, meet a Slovenian girl, talk to people from the old country—get news from the old country, read a newspaper. All of these organizations had a tavern, and the tavern owner was the focus of all this information. He would transfer money to the old country for you. He would keep in touch with people. He could probably speak English; he’d translate for you.
So these are very important organizations that were founded first—I think the oldest is the Polish National Alliance, 1889. And then the Poles raised money to build St. Joseph’s church. The Transfiguration Church was built by the Orthodox Fraternal Societies. Part of their mission was to preserve their heritage, which was religion. These guys had been persecuted in the old country. They couldn’t wait to start their own church; to have their own associations; to celebrate the culture that had been suppressed in the old country. So these were very, very important.
And my grandpa was a member of the Western Slavonic, St. Martins Number One. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Knights of St. John. These organizations were where you went to network, where you made business deals.
CN: Talk about the kinds of activities outside of church organizations. What community centers, theaters. What building structures were in the neighborhood, that you recollect?
ME: Well, from my background—the lodges, again, had concerts, put on plays. So that’s where you went. And dances, and baseball.
09:55 Baseball was this assimilation thing. It was American. So the lodges had teams, the brickyards had teams, the smelters had teams, the packing houses had teams. Grocery stores sponsored teams; Gerhardt Mercantile had a team. So there was a lot of baseball that went on.
CN: How did the different cultures relate to one another?
ME: They respected each other. And that’s the signature of Globeville. Neighborliness and respect. They had been enemies in the old country—the Prussians and the Russians and the Austrians. They would have been across a battle line in the old country. And when they came here, their—Globeville was incorporated in 1891. And in that first town council are Germans from Russia; Maximillan Malec [sp?] and Emil Forman [sp?], Croatians. And some native born, some American born—William Hanford Clark is the first mayor of Globeville. He was a prospector who came out here, American born. They got along. They made a point of getting along. So, when the First World War breaks out, there’s not skirmishes in taverns. They left that behind.
Now, they respected each other; they attended each other’s events. But at that time—and probably in America in general—you didn’t go to somebody else’s church. And when my oldest uncle, Andy Jackson, married a German girl from down the street, oh, both families were up in arms. And they got married by a justice of the peace, so as to not choose one side. That was 1930. You were supposed to marry within your language, within your culture, within your religion. And when the first grandchild came along, that all dissipated. By the time my mom got married, in 1946, to an Irish guy from across town—they were glad he was Catholic. So that had been dissipating, that rigorous “stay within your own group.”
But the sort of distinction in the Globeville ethnic groups is that they stayed in their ethnic enclaves pretty much until after the Second World War. Unlike the earlier groups—the Germans, the Irish, the Scots—who came here and could speak English to some extent—a lot of the Germans could speak English—and assimilated. And by the time these groups come in the 1880s—and they’re recruited, because they’ll work for less. So they bring in this huge labor force from Eastern Europe and Russia. Then there are newspaper articles that say, “Oh, these are not like the earlier immigrants.” These are lesser; these are less desirable people. They might be anarchists; they’ve got these huge families; they dress funny. And they’re not learning English, they’re not assimilating.
I don’t know how you’d learn English if you work 12 hours a day, six days a week. And you lived in your Slovenian neighborhood and you went to your Slovenian Church and your Slovenian lodge; you probably weren’t learning English real quick. So they were unwelcome. And after the silver panic of 1893, they’re competing with native-born and early arrivals for a diminished number of jobs. So they’re really not welcome. So they stay in Globeville. And they—everything you need is there: your job, your church, your lodge. They don’t assimilate.
Now, they get along with each other. But until the Second World War—I talked to old-timers that had never been farther than Pueblo, for a lodge convention, or to Fort Collins for a church convention. Your life was pretty much your neighborhood and your church and lodge and your family and your work.
CN: So, obviously you’ve done quite a bit of research on the history. Tell me how it is that you did get interested in going this deep in the history of the neighborhood.
ME: Well, we went down to Globeville a lot. My grandpa passed away in 1961, and in 1961 his house is now not in the middle of the block, it’s the end of the block. The highway’s already started carving up Globeville. My grandma passed away in 1967, after the flood of ’65. So we sold the house and didn’t go down there very much. There was no reason to. We’d go to a wedding, maybe, that was held the Slovenian Hall, or something. But I didn’t go down there that much.
15:10 It was only, like, in the 1980s you started hearing Globeville in the news, very negative. There was a train derailment with hydrochloric acid, on an Easter Sunday. And then all the lawsuits that began in the 1980s. And the first successful lawsuits culminate into 1993. But it was all this news about, oh, toxicity and the neighborhood. And the city of Denver had decided, in the 1960s, to let Globeville evolve into an industrial area and stop supporting city services. You’re paying taxes, you’re not getting your trash picked up. The zoning enforcement was very sketchy; the city itself has impound lots down there, an asphalt plant.
At any rate, it all seemed to be so negative. And I thought, well, there’s more to Globeville than that. By golly, I’ll write a book. I’ll research the history of Globeville. And I had I known then what I know now—it’s sort of like saying, “Well, I’ll take out my own appendix,” (laughing) “How hard can this be? I’ll get a book out and do this.” (Laughing.) I’m not a historian and I’m not a writer. So, I did enjoy the research. I spent a lot of time at the library—God bless the Denver Public Library! Hear, hear. They were so helpful. It’s very scattered information. And then I began interviewing people.
Like a lot of things, Globeville’s history is related to the discovery of gold in Colorado. Because, before 1858 there are trappers and traders and Native Americans; and they’re along that area in the Platte. And then when gold is discovered, all these people come out here, including a 23-year-old prospector, William Hanford Clark. And he stakes his claim and his homestead at 47th—what’s now 47th—and, like, Pearl. He’s a homesteader and a prospector; he’s 23. He’ll be the first mayor of Globeville. He hangs around.
But the story of gold is that: The early gold is nuggets and flakes. It’s free gold. Most of the gold isn’t free; it’s bound up in sulfides and bromides. How can you separate the metal from the ore? And this is a big conflict, a big challenge. And the man who discovers how to do that is Nathaniel Hill. He sets up the first profitable, successful smelter—the Boston & Colorado, in Black Hawk. It outgrows its space, and when the railroads arrive in the 1870s, he relocates to an area called Christian Ridge, and sets up the Boston & Colorado Smelter there. A company town: 1,600 company houses; the railroad stops there; there’s company stores; and they name the company town “Argo.”
So there’s Argo Park in Globeville, that once had animal cages, bowling alleys, a dance hall. It was a function of that company town. That smelter is so successful—he has a stained glass window in the state Capitol. This was like, you know, Bill Gates or something. It’s really—solving this problem in 1882, the Omaha & Grant Smelter is built by the Governor, James Grant. It’s where the coliseum is located today. Huge, huge smelter. The biggest smelter. The third smelter is started by a man named Holden. He’s a better, um “BS-er” than he is a business man, so it’s taken over by the Colorado National Bank. Then _____ [?], in 1889, who reorganizes it, renames it the Globe Smelter. Then _____ [name sounds like “A-she-dee”] is an immigrant. The Guggenheims will eventually be a force in the smelter trust; they’re immigrants.
19:56 And, this, these three huge, successful smelters spawn more businesses: foundries, railroads, the brickyards. Then the meat-packing plants move in. There’s a huge need for cheap labor. So that’s when they begin recruiting Eastern Europeans and Russians. Germans from Russian, Carpatho-Russians. And they’re eager to come, because eastern Europe and Russia is in absolute turmoil then. There are these three big empires—Austria, Germany, Russia—that are grabbing up little countries. They have divided Poland. There is no Poland. It’s parts of Austria, Germany. There’s a lot of tension, a lot of ethnic persecution. Uprisings, and reprisals.
So, at this time, sea travel is more convenient—it only takes a couple weeks instead of a month. There are methods of wiring money to people. So, folks start coming from eastern Europe and Russia, and they go to industrial centers of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Omaha. And then to Globeville.
There’s no Globeville, until 1891. There’s this little collection of developments—developers are platting and selling lots to these folks. And there’s Tacoma Heights, and the Greenwood Addition. Garden Place. They sound very bucolic. But people moved to this area to be close to their jobs, to be close to the smelter. The Globe Smelter also sets up company housing—Sheedy Row—along Washington. I do have a picture of Sheedy Row; they were nice little houses.
So that’s when these groups arrive here. And they, they’re eager to come here. They start sending money back—it’s called chain migration. So, you send—there are three groups of Germans from Russia: Norka, Beidecka, Denhoff [spelling?]. So you send back to the old country for your relatives. They come and they create a little shack. There are, like, 20 people living in this little shack. They’re painfully frugal; save their money; send more money back; bring more people from Norka. They build their church. So, they’re very eager to set up these foundations—the churches and the lodges—to celebrate and preserve their culture.
And the immigrant story—the same, then, as there is today—how do you make it, in Amercia? How do you preserve your culture. You’ve got one foot in both camps. People start to assimilate when their kids learn English, when their kids are staying in school and bringing the English home. They’re translating for their parents.
The other big thing that happens is World War One, that breaks contact, really, from 1914 on, with families in the old country. So, you begin to make your life here. You’re not going back. You’re not going to go back. You’re not going to be sending for people. And then there’s immigration reform—very strict immigration reform—in 1924. So immigration pretty much stops. And these groups in Globeville stay intact in their little ethnic environments, really, until World War Two. So that’s sort of a distinction of Globeville—they get along, they respect each other, but they kind of stay in their own little enclaves. The Germans from Russia are located around their churches and on the hill; and the Polish are around St. Joseph’s Polish Church and in an area of Retreat Park—Emerson, Clarkson. And the Carpatho-Russians are around their church. And the Slovenians and Croatians are around St. Jacob’s, and Western Slavonic, and Holy Rosary Church. So they sort of stay in their neighborhoods, and they work together—in the meat-packing plants and stuff. And they kind of know each other, but you still kind of marry within your own group, and stay in your own group.
24:53 Then in the Second World War, guys that had never been Pueblo will be in Basic Training in Norfolk, Virginia. And then in the Atlantic theater, the European theater, and the Pacific theater, they will have seen the world and come back. And they don’t want to marry the girl down the block. And they don’t want to be confined to the mother-in-law apartment after you get married. The other thing that happens that breaks up neighborhoods—not just in Globeville, but in the nation—was VA loans. That you can get a 30-year mortgage—three percent, 30-year mortgage—on a new home, but not to fix up an old one. So in Detroit, and Milwaukee, and Chicago, and Pittsburgh, people move out of the ethnic neighborhoods to a new home—in Arvada, and Thornton, and Westminster. AND, because of the Depression, and World War Two, they had been making due and getting along with old cars and old houses. They were kind of tired of old things. God, you could get a new home with a GARAGE, you know.
So that’s what people did: They moved out of the neighborhoods. And then the Spanish-speaking people began moving in. Now, they had been moving up, not from Mexico, but from farms and ranches in southern Colorado, Texas, New Mexico. They worked the beets in the ‘30s. Some of them were recruited to work—they would work for less. So they began moving into Globeville. And they get jobs—
CN: What time period are we talking about?
ME: Well, they’re moving in—they recruit Hispanics—Hispanics replace the Germans from Russia, in the beet fields, in the ‘30s. And not entirely, because a lot of the Eastern Europeans are still working the beets in the summer. Your kids can work the beets (chuckling), it’s cheap labor. So, they start recruiting Hispanics to work in the beet fields. And of course, you’re supposed—then they’re going to go back in the fall. Well, they don’t. So people began settling in Globeville, and in Platteville, and Loveland, and these beet communities. And then there are folks who moved up during the Depression, during the Dust Bowl years, from towns in southern Colorado, and got a job in the packing plants. Start moving—you’ll see names. The 1940 Census became available, and then you start seeing Spanish surnames.
But these are not, generally, people from Mexico. These are folks who will tell you that they’re from Spain. Their ancestors are from Spain, and a lot of them no longer spoke Spanish. But guys like Lalo C. de Baca—he buys Yeta’s house [?] on Sherman street in 1961. So he doesn’t have to ride two buses to work in the meat-packing plant. He can walk there. And he is related—his grandpa’s brother was a territorial governor of New Mexico. So he’s related to the Cabeza de Vacas that are the Spanish explorers, really go way back.
When the highway is built in the ‘60s, then there’s big-time displacement.
CN: Yeah, talk about that.
ME: Oh. The first highway is the Valley Highway. And that’s begun—after the war, there’s federal funding. Eisenhower discovered the importance of transportation and moving troops in Europe. So, he’s got a real push in Congress to get this national highway system built. Nationally, they go through a lot of ethnic neighborhoods—maybe to break up a Democratic voting bloc. But anyway, the Valley Highway is begun, and that displaces the western half of Globeville and the Argo neighborhood—the older, smelter neighborhood—it goes right through there, and the Italians that lived in the Bottoms. So, that’s the first displacement. And it only goes from, like, 52nd to Colorado Boulevard to University Hills. It’s not a very long segment, but it displaces people.
29:59 The bigger displacement is I-70. Right through the heart of Globeville, down 46th Avenue. And that starts in the 1960s. And it cuts the neighborhood up; it separates people from their church. You can no longer just walk anywhere in Globeville. And though they build this tunnel, so people can get to the Polish Church, that becomes a no-man’s land. You’re likely to get mugged in the tunnel. People don’t use it. So there’s a lot of flight from the neighborhood.
I was at pancake breakfast at Holy Rosary one Sunday. I was talking about, “I’m a member of Western Slavonic,” and about half-a-dozen Spanish ladies say: We’re members of Western Slavonic. They got their home loans through the Western Slavonic in the 1950s, to buy a house in Globeville. There’s a little bit of red-lining going on, where banks wouldn’t loan on homes in Globeville. But you could get a loan from the fraternals. So Hispanics are joining the Western Slavonic and getting their loans. You also got loans from grocery stores—John Yelenick, Carl Gerhardt, these guys were Westerkamps [?]. The grocers acted as bankers, and people trusted them with thousands of dollars. But they gave home loans to people.
People didn’t trust banks, and banks didn’t look kindly on immigrants. So, a lot of Hispanics got their loans from Carl Gerhardt, or John Yelenick, or the WesterKamps, or the Western Slavonic. And they start moving in in the ‘50s, in the late ‘50s. And the neighborhood now is probably 80-percent, at least 80-percent, Hispanic.
(Pause.)
CN: So, let’s kind of move into the contemporary history of the neighborhood. You brought up the highway—what other kinds of things, in your lifetime, have transpired in the neighborhood.
ME: Well, I don’t live in the neighborhood.
CN: Right.
ME: So, um, I’m not as knowledgeable about that. In the ‘50s, the Globeville Civic Association was formed in response to the lack of city services in Globeville. The trash wasn’t getting picked up. And this has been a constant cry since 19-3 [?]: We’re paying for city services we’re not getting. The alleys weren’t paved; we have no curbs and gutters; the streets aren’t paved. We don’t have street lights. So, that association was formed, I think, in 1953. It has been, more or less, a way of trying to get things done in the neighborhood and trying to KEEP things from getting done in the neighborhood that—a constant presence at city hall, to rant about the creation of the highway.
Then, in the 1980s, a guy named Joe Tekavec [?] who had been—Joe and Leah Tekavec—had been in the civic association forever. When Reverend Joseph Hirsch and his wife Matushka, Hirsch, took over at Transfiguration in 1984—the Orthodox have a history of civic involvement, physical civic involvement. And so, they were somewhat involved with the civic association, allowing them to meet at the church hall—“The Old Saw Mill” they called it. Then when they were campaigning to rebuild The Old Saw Mill, portions of it had to be subject to city council and the civic association. So Matushka, Paulette, got very involved with the civic association. They, at the end of that process—I think in 1986—Joe and Leah were elderly and wanted to step down, and they asked Matushka: Would you consider being the head of the civic association?
34:54 Well, she _____ [?] considered it and accepted. And she brought a skill set, from being a sociologist and a very good organizer. But it is THEN that you see the civic association starting to get this professional aspect of it. They wanted more city services, and they said: “Well, you don’t have a comprehensive neighborhood plan.” She said, “Well how do we get that?” “Well, there’s no city planner available right now.” So she put together all these different groups in the neighborhood, and they developed their own neighborhood plan that the city uses now, as a blueprint. It was so professionally done.
So, they all of a sudden were getting community development funds for sidewalks, and street lights, and, “We’re getting things done in Globeville!” We’re cleaning up the graffiti, and we’ve got neighborhood groups that can get volunteers to paint homes for the elderly; a lot of outside involvement, and a lot more city involvement. And, if you wanted to needle a city, she knew how to do it. “Okay, you can’t do that because …” or, “You can do that but we want this in exchange.” So, that’s sort of the beginning.
And there’s a 25-year—they were, the Hirsches were at Transfiguration for 25 years. And you can really see this imprint in community grants. And, you also begin to see groups forming to bring these suits against Asarco. This had been done before, but now it’s got a professional aspect to it. So, these groups that organized the lawsuits get some high-powered—Macon Cowles takes on this first project. And they had originally brought it up in 1981, ’83, and it’s finally settled in 1993. The first set of lawsuits—getting somebody that dealt with what they call poverty law. The law books, you can see this, that the idea was that you put these polluting industries in immigrant neighborhoods.
Well, anyway. There’s more professional power in the neighborhood organizations. And I think they’ve just had a changeover in their organization and their officers and stuff. But one of the very good things to happen with that is the—it’s 10 years old now—the Globeville Community Days that they used to have every year. And it was a function of the District Attorney’s office. Restorative Justice, so that kids that were painting graffiti had to clean it up, and apologize to the neighbors. Bill Ritter’s plan—very important. And it stops some of this stuff in the neighborhood; kids with nothing better to do.
But anyway, the combination of that and the Orthodox Food Festival—is their church picnic, every year—so they combine that, that NOW the third weekend in July you have the Orthodox Food Festival and Old Globeville Days. And you’ve got Bulgarian dancers and food from every corner of every ethnic group in Globeville; and accordion music, and lamb being roasted. A special feature I like, is you can buy a beer, and a shot and a beer. (Light laughing.) It’s this Eastern European tradition of a glass of slivovitz and a beer. You toss the slivovitz down, and then you sip your beer. Anyway.
39:45 Globeville, at one time, was sort of self conscious about its ethnic background, now it celebrates that ethnic background, including the old groups, the old Eastern Europeans. A lot of Eastern Europeans don’t live in Globeville. Just remnants of those early groups. But with the fall of communism in the 1990s, there’s a HUGE Polish-speaking congregation at St. Joseph’s Polish Catholic Church—they’ve added another Polish-speaking priest. And they have ethnic food down there, and mass in Polish. So they don’t live there, but there’s that Polish presence still in the neighborhood. And the Orthodox don’t live in the neighborhood, but the Bulgarians and the Carpatho-Russians that have left Europe, NOW have this presence in the neighborhood. And that church is thriving. It’s bursting at the seams. Holy Rosary still has the remnants of the Slovenians and Croatians but a largely Spanish congregation. Two Spanish masses that are packed.
I enjoy the fact that we all seem to get along, that we have our Polish bazaar—or, our parish bazaar—with the old Slovenians and Croatians and the Spanish folks, a lot of whom CAN speak English, but it’s like the arms negotiations, where we’re pointing and gesturing. And someone who can speak both languages is translating. But we get along, and we’re richer for it.
CN: What do you know about the National Western, complex, and that history.
ME: They started in 1906. And, I have mixed feelings about it, because it’s a good source of jobs. It’s also gobbled up more homes than maybe even the highway. So, Elyria and Swansea larger disappeared. There’s a lady that wrote a book about Elyria that’s got all these pictures of little houses that are no longer there.
So I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t know what they intend to do. This is like the Superbowl. I mean, guys come here from some little town, “Puppy Breath,” Montana. And they come for the National Western, but they’re going to buy a truck, and a trailer, and maybe a refrigerator, and they’ll stay in a hotel. We see them at Holy Rosary—they come for pancake breakfast during that time. So it probably brings more money into town than if we had a Superbowl. So, it’s very powerful, and a source of jobs. I don’t know what their plans are, I really don’t. I don’t know if anybody knows what their plans are, and I haven’t attended the meetings because I don’t live in the neighborhood—because it would be self-serving for me to say, “Well, I think you ought to do this.” I don’t have to live with those results.
CN: So, what do you see for the future of these neighborhoods. What would you like to see?
ME: What I’d like to see is: More positive attention. More—I’d like to see Globeville less trashy. A neighborhood where—I’ve got a distant relative, Leopold Korsak [sp?], lived in what was called Retreat Park on Emerson or Clarkson. And he had a little orchard and just this neat-as-a-pin house. And they all were. And now those are impound lots and salvage yards. It’s real hard for somebody that lives down there –and there are a few people that do—to keep their houses up, when you’re surrounded by trash, by junkyard dogs. Really, some of those are city owned.
The zoning in Globeville has been inconsistent. I’d like to see less trash—I think light rail could be helpful. Light rail could—my FEAR is gentrification. I used to have a little house—I bought a house—in North Denver in 1979. They’re calling everything Highlands. And the gentrification there—I couldn’t buy that house now. It’s priced people out of the neighborhood; it’s made it more advantageous for someone to sell their little house that gets scraped, and they’re putting up things that look like factories, or medium-security units of a penal institution, sort of non-descript architecture.
So, I’d like to see—some of the gentrification could be helpful to Globeville. There are wood-working shops on 49th Avenenue. The River North neighborhood is pushing that way. Artisans would be helpful. But I don’t want to see the developers level Globeville. And that could happen.
45:18 I’d like to see Globeville that looks like parts of New Orleans, where those little houses are treasured, and taken care of. I’d like to see more of a historical awareness in Globeville. There was a push at one time to rename Argo Park. And I thought: You don’t know about Argo Park, you don’t know about this whole lost civilization and the fact that there used to be animal cages and a bowling alley there, and a dance pavilion. This was huge. Why would you do that?
I’d like to see a historical marker in front of the Croatian lodge, which is still there. And they used to have—before the churches were built, they had funerals there, and weddings there, and the labor union met there. Big labor battles in 1903; that’s where they met. So I’d like to see, sort of, then-and-now signs around the neighborhood. I’d like to see the current residents aware of what went before; aware of these immigrants, like them, who came before. In Salida, and Ouray, history is big business. People go to the historic districts there—and they do in Denver. This could be very good for Globeville. Of course, that’s what I’m up to my neck in, but that’s what I’d like to see.
CN: Perfect. That just about comes to the end of the areas that I had hoped to cover. What else would you like to say, that we haven’t talked about—that I haven’t asked about.
ME: Globeville’s—Father John Canjar, who is 92 and was one of 10 children raised in the neighborhood.
CN: Currently 92 years old?
ME: Currently 92 years old. And he was pastor at Holy Rosary from 1959 to ’69. But he comes from an immigrant family. He said, “Globeville is what everybody says they want: the neighborhood where people celebrate their differences; people get along; people cooperate.” This is—you know, they build new neighborhoods, like Stapleton, that are walkable. Globeville was walkable. Globeville had what everybody says they want—where people got along, they respected each other’s differences, they celebrated that diversity. So I would like to see Globeville continue to be that neighborhood.
CN: Perfect.
ME: Alright.
CN: Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate your taking the time to do this interview.
ME: Oh—well, thank you so much.
48:11 [End of recording. End of interview.]

Mary Lou Egan was born in 1948 in Denver, Colorado. One of 5 children, she grew up in the Washington Park neighborhood. During her childhood she spent a signifigant amount of time at her grandparent’s house in the Globeville neighborhood. Her grandfather, a Slovenian butcher, worked in the Globeville Cash Market at 45th Avenue and Lincoln Street. On Sundays the family attended Holy Rosary Church. Mary Lou has spent several years researching the history of Globeville. As of November 2013, she lives in Denver, Colorado.

Description

1 audio file (48:11 minutes), 1 photograph

Is Part Of

Globeville and Swansea and Elyria Oral History Project

Subject

Egan, Mary Lou, 1948-; Globeville (Denver, Colo. : Neighborhood);

Format-Medium

Audio

Source

In the interview Mary Lou Egan talks about Globeville prior to the construction of the Valley Highway, as well as her memories of her grandparents, their neighbors, and community entertainment. She also discusses the culture, history, and traditions of Globeville’s residents in relation to their ethnic backgrounds and their interactions with each other. She discusses in depth the pollution from different companies and the highway, the lack of City services in the neighborhood, the evolution of the smelting industry, chain migration of the workers, and what the neighborhood can become.

Rights Contact Information

Copyright restrictions applying to use or reproduction of this image available from the Western History and Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library, at photosales@denverlibrary.org.